From Atom to Microgrid – New Perspectives for Electrochemical Energy Storage

High energy long life rechargeable battery is considered as key enabling technology for deep de-carbonization. Energy storage in the electrochemical form is attractive because of its high efficiency and fast response time. Besides the technological importance, electrochemical devices also provide a unique platform for fundamental and applied materials research since ion movement is often accompanied by inherent complex phenomena related to phase changes, electronic structure changes. In this seminar, I will discuss a few new perspectives for energy storage materials including new gas electrolytes, new Li/Na intercalation compounds and new battery architectures. I hope to demonstrate how to combine knowledge-guided synthesis/characterization and computational modeling to develop and optimize new higher energy/power density electrode and electrolytes materials for rechargeable batteries from picowatt-hour to megawatt-hour. With recent advances in characterization tools and computational methods, we are able to explore ionic mobility, charge transfer and phase transformations in electrode materials in operando, and map out the structure-properties relations in functional materials for energy storage and conversion. Moreover, I will discuss a few future priority research directions for electrochemical energy storage.